The Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act of 1986 was not the birth of jointness and joint operational art; it was its rebirth. By the end of World War II and into the Korean War, the U.S. military was demonstrating premier joint warfighting skills. Leaders such as Chester Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower had crafted the principles of joint operational art and forged vital joint lessons on the battlefield.
So what derailed this great school of military thought? Why did we let slip almost four decades of potential progress?
Ironically, the technological revolution in military affairs (RMA) that ended World War II—the atomic bomb—plunged joint operational art into a long hiatus. In the quest to remain relevant during the Cold War, the services were misguided to think that our nation no longer needed a well-trained, joint military force to win wars. Our nuclear capability would deter conventional wars and mutually assured destruction would prevent nuclear war. Nuclear-armed forces were the new ultimate instrument of war.1
Contemporary discussions on the future of military affairs are replete with examples of a new revolution in military affairs based on the application of information technology to warfare. The Department of Defense (DoD) defines this new revolution as "the set of activities by which DoD attempts to harness the revolution in military affairs to make fundamental changes in technology, operational concepts and doctrine, and organizational structure."2 In capitalizing on the new RMA, President George W. Bush has stated, "We will modernize some existing weapons and equipment . . . but we will do this judiciously and selectively. Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements to harness new technologies that will support a new strategy. . . . Our defense vision will drive our defense budget, not the other way around.3
Post-World War II nuclear force structure funding competition marked the beginning of a dark period of service parochialism. Spending on nuclear weapons programs from 1940 to 1996 is estimated to have cost the nation a staggering $5.8 trillion.4 How much will our nation spend preparing for the information war? Will service funding priorities cause yet another schism in jointness? What has the history of joint operational art or jointness taught us about revolutions in military affairs?
Nuclear weapons introduced a technological change that fractured jointness, inflamed parochialism, and stymied the development of joint operational art for 40 years. Now that the Goldwater-Nichols Act has injected new life into joint operational art, we must fight to stay the course. Future wars will demand that our military services operate together in an unpredictable world of limited resources.
We are now at another critical fork in the road; we can either embrace our lessons from the past and push beyond our current level of joint operational art or be seduced by yet another alluring revolution in military affairs. We should not let the information technology supplant joint operational art, as nuclear warfare did. Rather, we should incorporate future RMAs into the evolution of joint operational art.
Masters of Joint Operational Art
As we look to the future and to further development of joint warfighting doctrine, we would be wise to leverage from our past successes. The Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, and the landings at Inchon, code-named Operation Chromite, highlight the enormous potential of joint operations. These two operations represent a convincing framework from which our military forefathers implemented principles of jointness.5
As plans solidified for the invasion of Okinawa, Admiral Nimitz, as the Joint Force Commander and with Joint Chiefs of Staff approval, initiated a mini-"Goldwater-Nichols act" on the fly to expand his command relationships to execute the complex operation of invading a heavily fortified island close to the Japanese home islands.6 By taking this step, Admiral Nimitz demonstrated a key principle for successful joint operations: unity of command with clear lines of authority. He advocated the hierarchy principle, which holds that the degree of cooperation among the services is inversely proportional to the number of command echelons.7
Admiral Nimitz's intiatives produced a streamlined structure integrated along functional land, sea, and air components. His joint principle of unity of command is embedded in today's doctrine in the form of the Joint Task Force, the preferred operational command structure for war fighting. He did this because it makes operational organizations flatter and more effective, and it improves internal cooperation and communications. Admiral Nimitz unleashed the nonlinear effects of synergy that would, 40 years later, become the hallmark of all joint operations.
Similarly, General MacArthur's strategic counterattack at Inchon in 1950 established the operational art that guides U.S. joint operations today. His immensely successful Operation Chromite would, unfortunately, be the last of its kind for 40 years. General MacArthur, as did Admiral Nimitz, understood the advantages of joint operational art and the requirement to fight as an integrated, cohesive team. As the planning intensified for Chromite, General MacArthur saw the need for a new form of joint authority to coordinate, control, and deconflict air operations. This concept, which became known as coordination control, was the forerunner of the modern Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) concept.8
On the ground, General MacArthur understood the principle of cohesion and how to strike a balance that maximized combat power. He realized that too much integration below the division, battle group, or wing level could disrupt unit cohesion, negating interservice benefits by reducing efficiency and morale.9 As a master of operational art, he skillfully struck the optimum force balance and created Joint Task Force (JTF)-7 for the amphibious landing operations to best maximize force diversity. The Joint Operations Cell of JTF-7 provided the coordination control mechanism that enhanced interservice effectiveness through liaison, trust, unity of effort, and coordinated targeting. Furthermore, as the Joint Force Commander, General MacArthur—as Admiral Nimitz had—established unity of command and effectively balanced centralized planning and decentralized execution—a long-standing joint principle.10 He perfected the concept of "supported" and "supporting" commanders in the theater of operations.
These complex joint operations were not regarded as novel in 1950; they were well tested and proven by the end of World War II. Amazingly, however, these practices fell into disuse after 1950. "General Eisenhower summed up his commonsense judgment after four long years of war by saying, 'separate ground, sea, and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in a war, we will fight it in all elements with all services as one single concentrated effort.' He hoped and may have believed that warfare had become too terrible to continue; he expected that multidimensional teamwork had so proven itself that it would be the norm in the future. He was wrong on both counts."11
Demise of Joint Operational Art
What happened? What moved joint war fighting to the back burner for so many years? Although there were many varied reasons, the main deterrent to a continued healthy focus on the importance of joint operational art was U.S. eagerness to treat strategic nuclear bombing as the end-all, be-all strategy to deter or, if necessary, win future conventional and nuclear wars. Nuclear warfare replaced conventional warfare and threatened to displace conventional forces. Funding priorities were biased toward nuclear force structure. The nation fell in love with the bomb and Strategic Air Command (SAC).
Following World War II, U.S. defense efforts focused on the newly designated Air Force and its strategic bombing capability. The specter of nuclear warfare against the Soviet Union provided the impetus for strategic theory. "There was a general feeling throughout the country that the Air Force had become our first line of defense."12 This feeling was critical to the development of joint operational art. Discussions on the continued relevancy of ground and naval forces were commonplace. Taking the lead in a long list of air power advocates that included Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and William "Billy" Mitchell was Air Force General Curtis LeMay. He strongly advocated the effectiveness of air power as the sole means of nuclear weapons delivery and strategic bombing in general. His actions as commander of Strategic Air Command, Vice Chief of Staff, and eventually Chief of Staff of the Air Force evidenced this advocacy. In testimony before a congressional subcommittee, General LeMay said:
Strategic Air Command is the long-range atomic striking force of the United States. It is responsible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff through the chief of staff of the United States Air Force as the executive agent. [Its] mission . . . is to train and maintain an effective nuclear air offensive force . . . to become and remain sufficiently strong to deter aggression during a cold war and, in cooperation with other United States and allied forces, to win the decisive air power battle in a general war.13
In 1949, the Air Force was just two years old. Yet it "received the then considerable sum of $10 billion in appropriations, more than either the Army or the Navy."14 By the mid-1950s, "seventeen percent of the [entire] defense budget went to strategic air."15 How did these actions diminish the level of jointness in the military? Table 1 shows the funding of nuclear weapons and platforms in the early years of the Air Force.
Table 1: Estimated Air Force and Overall DOD Expenditures for Nuclear Weapons, 1944-54 (Billions of 1996 dollars)
| Total DOD nuclear | Nuclear as percentage of total DOD | Total AF nuclear | AF as percentage of DOD nuclear | AF nuclear as percentage of total AF | |
| 1944 | — | — | 0.038 | — | 00.02 |
| 1945 | — | — | 0.040 | — | 00.02 |
| 1946 | — | — | 0.159 | — | 00.25 |
| 1947 | 34.842 | 27 | 5.038 | 14.50 | 37.30 |
| 1948 | 26.376 | 27 | 5.762 | 21.85 | 46.20 |
| 1949 | 45.487 | 32 | 20.365 | 44.77 | 67.30 |
| 1950 | 39.221 | 34 | 16.966 | 43.26 | 42.00 |
| 1951 | 102.173 | 40 | 76.721 | 75.09 | 53.70 |
| 1952 | 115.061 | 27 | 74.043 | 64.35 | 53.60 |
| 1953 | — | — | 83.320 | — | 48.00 |
| 1954 | — | — | 69.785 | — | 51.50 |
| Total | 363.161 | 352.237 |
Information Revolution or Evolution?
United States to Congress and the public."16 The United States was to be the Navy's first supercarrier, capable of launching aircraft laden with nuclear weapons. In late 1949, the interservice rivalry finally erupted when the Navy gave scathing congressional testimony, which came to be known as the "Revolt of the Admirals." The Navy claimed, in part, that "the Air Force was trying to destroy naval aviation in order to reduce Navy influence in the military establishment."17 Even though the Revolt of the Admirals resulted in the dismissal of several high-level individuals, the infighting over roles and missions continued for years.
Volumes have been published regarding the Cold War and nuclear defense strategy. Nonetheless, time has taught us that our Cold War strategy did not need to oust our joint warfighting capability, which should have been allowed to mature to its present state. One only has to compare the military failures of the Vietnam War and Desert One (U.S. raid to free Iranian hostages) to the successes of Operations Just Cause (1989 U.S. military intervention in Panama) and Desert Storm to understand the validity of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. The future security environment will require innovative solutions to tough problems. Joint operational art again stands before another fork in the road. Which road will we take?
The Internet and the free market economies that opened at the end of the Cold War paved the way for the information revolution in business. Information technology was revolutionizing business as the technology sector emerged as the engine of the U.S. economy. Dotcom businesses designed and based on e-business dramatically flourished. As the new economy pushed the world's stock markets to unprecedented levels, the technology sector burned out and the bubble burst. The comparisons of the information technology revolution in business and the military are highly instructive. Should we follow the lead of the business sector and culminate? Or should we stay a steady course and navigate past the boneyard of bankrupt dotcom businesses, using information technology as our compass to evolve joint operational art?
Unlike the "single system RMA," which nuclear weapons produced, the information revolution is being called an "integrated systems RMA," propelled by information systems technology.18 The new operational concept that best distinguishes the "integrated systems RMA" is known as network-centric warfare (NCW). This new warfare is defined as: "an information superiority-enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors, decision makers, and shooters to achieve share awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and a degree of self-synchronization."19 A recent example of network-centric warfare's impact on modern warfare can be seen in U.S. Central Command (CentCom). The Commander-in-Chief of Central Command (CinCCent), General T. R. Franks, did not forward deploy to Afghanistan to execute the war on terrorism (Enduring Freedom). Instead, he has chosen to direct the war from his headquarters in Tampa, Florida, "plugged" into his theater by modern telecommunications technology. CentCom's command, control, communications, and computer (C4) structure ties in closely with the vision retired Navy Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, Director of DoD's Office of Force Transformation, has of network-centric warfare: "the ability of geographically dispersed forces (consisting of entities) to create a high level of shared battlespace awareness that can be exploited via self-synchronization and other network-centric operations to achieve commanders' intent."20 Afghanistan is an example of sound operational planning and innovative joint force employment enabled through NCW and how it can further joint operational art.
On the other hand, assertions such as those retired Navy Admiral William Owens makes in his book, Lifting the Fog of War, have taken the revolution in military affairs into the realm of fantasy.21 Admiral Owens advocates radically restructuring the U.S. military and DoD to reap the advantages of the revolution in information technology. He also concludes that military doctrine and operational concepts fundamentally change in light of the information technology revolution. Although most of Admiral Owens's argument is directed at current DoD acquisition policies and not directly against joint operational art, his desire to radically change military doctrine is suspect. After all, joint doctrine serves as the foundation of joint operational art.
The information RMA has not enabled CentCom to "lift the fog of war." Yet it has allowed the CinCCent and his staff to maintain situational awareness in an immature theater that otherwise would require great effort for the relocation of his headquarters. It has evolved command and control at the theater-strategic level. As stated in the seminal work on NCW: "To reach its full potential, Network Centric Warfare must be deeply rooted in operational art."22 The "fog and friction" of war are as prevalent today as they were in Carl von Clausewitz's time, but NCW shows promise in advancing joint operational art. Each facet of NCW has direct correlation to principles of joint operational art and serves only to evolve the state of the art. Network-centric warfare is not an RMA, but an evolution of joint operational art enabled through information technology and information systems integration.
Lieutenant Commander McFarland, a surface warfare officer, is executive officer of the USS Bulkeley (DDG-84). His previous assignment was as combat systems officer in the USS Mobile Bay (CG-53). Prior enlisted, he received his commission from the University of New Mexico NROTC. Major Perry currently is assigned to U.S. Transportation Command's Program Analysis and Financial Management Directorate at Scott Air Force Base. Prior to this assignment, he attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Lieutenant Colonel Miles currently is assigned to U.S. Forces Japan as a facilities engineer. Previously, he served as S3 and executive officer of the 84th Engineer Battalion at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
1. George Feifer, Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1970), pp. 566-68. back to article
2. Michele Flournoy, Report of the National Defense University Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 Working Group (Washington: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, November 2000), p. 14. back to article
3. Flournoy, Report of the National Defense University Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 Working Group, p. 14. back to article
4. Stephen I. Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p. 6. back to article
5. Robert C. Rubel, "Principles of Jointness," Joint Force Quarterly, Winter 2000-01, p. 46. back to article
6. John Pike, "The Battle of Okinawa," at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military /facility/okinawa-battle.htm, p. 2. back to article
7. Rubel, "Principles of Jointness," p. 47. back to article
8. John R. Ballard, "Operation Chromite—Counterattack at Inchon," Joint Force Quarterly, Spring/Summer 2001, pp. 31-36. back to article
9. Rubel, "Principles of Jointness," pp. 45-49. back to article
10. Rubel, "Principles of Jointness," p. 46. back to article
11. John R. Ballard, The Evolution of The Joint Force Since 1945, at http://www.defence.gov.au/aerospacecentre/2000apc/Ballard.html, p. 2. back to article
12. Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle (New York: Crown, 1986), p. 271. back to article
13. Coffey, Iron Eagle, p. 273. back to article
14. Coffey, Iron Eagle, p. 284. back to article
15. Coffey, Iron Eagle, p. 339. back to article
16. Phillip S. Meilinger, "The Admirals Revolt of 1949—Lessons for Today," Parameters, September 1989, p. 81. back to article
17. R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevon N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 BC to the Present, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 1329. back to article
18. Jeffrey McKitrick, James Blackwell, et al., The Revolution in Military Affairs, Strategic Assessment Center (McLean, VA: Science Applications International Corporation, December 1995), p. 3. back to article
19. McKitrick, Blackwell, et al., The Revolution in Military Affairs, p. 2. back to article
20. David S. Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority (Washington, D.C., DoD C4ISR Cooperative Research Program, 1999) p. 88. back to article
21. William Owens and Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000). back to article
22. Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, p. 3. back to article